Saturday, October 30, 2010

Birdstuff: "It's the opposite of Milli Vanilli – we're a live, loud, rowdy, rock band that is trying to make people think that the music is being controlled by a computer."

Man or Astroman? played Dublin on 23 January 2000. I spoke with Birdstuff, the band’s drummer and spokesperson before their show and he told me it would also probably be their one and only gig in Dublin. The band's ultimate plan was to stop touring and get people to come and visit them. “There’s this place called Branson, Missouri in the United Sates where they have all these general run of the mill country acts that perform in a theatre there seven months of the year and people come to them,” Birdstuff explained, “We’re thinking of setting up a venue in Atlanta, Georgia where the Man or Astroman? headquarters are located and we’d just play there three or four months out of the year. If anyone wants to come and see us they can come there, because we are going to quit coming to see people. I think that it’s going to start working the other way around.”

The band’s entrance was preceded by five astronauts stumbling around the stage in slow motion, setting up the equipment. The stage eventually resembled a laboratory from a fifties b-movie, lots of green screens, obsolete computers and tape machines. Man or Astroman? plugged themselves in and we were transported on a voyage back in time, via three huge projector screens, where UFOs were saucer shaped and calculators took up entire rooms.

Man or Astro-Man? European Tour 2000 - Flyer (back)

The band moved in choreographed robotic harmony, but according to Birdstuff they don’t really control anything. “At the base of our spines, if you can call it a spine, there’s a little port and we have no control over any kind of muscular coordination functions at all.” Halfway through we were introduced to the supercomputer that controls the whole Astroman? show. Earlier Birdstuff had given me a detailed explanation of how everything works. “We plug ourselves into the supercomputer, the EEVIAC (Embedded Electronic Variably Integrated Astro Console) and it basically controls everything that we do in the show, which is why this tour is a little bit more relaxing and we can get a little bit more sleep because we don’t have anything to do with the music.”

The band took a long hiatus in 2001 and regrouped for Touch & Go's 25th anniversary shows in 2006. They also played at this year's SXSW and are playing a short US tour in November 2010.

Friday, October 29, 2010

It's hard to believe that Monday saw the sixth anniversary of John Peel's passing. It's also 12 years since Peel curated the Meltdown festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London. In honour of the great man here are some old flyers of his Meltdown.

This episode featured two Charles Douglas tracks from his newly reissued 1999 album, The Lives of Charles Douglas. This record is surely a great lost album which is finally getting a proper release. The album was recorded in a decaying studio in New York owned by Ultra Vivid Scene's Kurt Ralske and produced by Moe Tucker. Moe also played drums on the record. Kurt Ralske also plays guitars and keyboards and engineered the album.

Charles was signed to No. 6 Records by Terry Tolkin, who had previously worked for Electra Records in the US, signing Stereolab, Luna and The Afghan Whigs to the label. The album eventually received a minor release by Caroline Records and subsequently disappeared. It's now getting a rerelease by Broken Horse Records with expanded linear notes by Douglas telling the fasinating and sometimes gut-wrenchingly funny story of the album's recording.

Douglas has the following to say about the album's opening track: "I wrote “Summertime” because I really like the Velvet Underground. And I really like happy songs, or songs that start out happy and then you realize they’re really depressing. I always admired The Misfits song “Skulls” because it’s so poppy and upbeat, but then of course Danzig is so scary and demonic, especially now that he’s an old man. I suppose Husker Du does that too. One minute you think, “This is a cheerful, up-tempo rock song!” and then the next second there are razor blades everywhere and you’re dialing for an ambulance because you realize the song is about how much Bob Mould and Grant Hart love each other, but they can’t make things work. I thought it might be nice to write a song like that. The chords are catchy, but the lyrics paint a bleak picture. Of course, I was feeling that way at the time. Things were, are, and always will be quite bleak. I was also listening to a lot of Television and Ramones, and all the other classic New York City rock bands, so they really influenced the sound of this record. And we were recording at a horrible decaying studio on West 30th Street in New York City, so that helped too. I asked Maureen “Moe” Tucker to produce the album and play drums, because her drums sound like city traffic. I think she’s one of the best rock drummers in the world."

This episode featured three tracks from Shugo Tokumaru's fourth album Port Entropy. The Tokyo-born singer/songwriter layers "flute, accordion, harmonica and xylophone over uplifting guitar melodies" and the finished product is brilliant. The album is just out on Souterrain Transmissions and a free download of Rum Hee can be had here.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

We kicked off this episode with two tracks from the fourth album by The Monkees, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. Pleasent Valley Sunday was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and is named after a street in West Orange, New Jersey called Pleasent Valley Way. The lyrics are a brilliant observation on the comfortable existance of suburban America and how Goffin and King couldn't quite fit in after moving from New York.

Another pleasant valley Sunday,
Charcoal burning everywhere,
Rows of houses that are all the same,
And no one seems to care.

Ken Emerson the author of the brilliant Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era, in an interview with the New York Times in 2005 noted that ''Jerry Goffin and Carole King, at that time a married couple, moved from Brooklyn to West Orange. They lived kind of uncomfortably in this suburban setting, with swimming pools in the backyard and barbecues. They were rock 'n' roll songwriters, after all.''

While watching This Is England 86, I was reminded of Clayhill's cover of Please Please Please Let Me Get Want I Want which plays over the final sequence of This Is England. Whilst I really like Clayhill's version, I've always prefered the Dream Academy's 1984 cover. This is probably better known in its instrumental mix from the soundtrack to Ferris Bueller's Day Off. A great track which kicked off Episode 316.

This episode also featured Darren Hayman's latest single Calling Out Your Name Again taken from his latest album, Essex Arms. The is described as, "the second in a proposed trilogy of albums about Hayman's home county of Essex, Essex Arms is a conceptual piece about the East Anglian rural underbelly. Whereas Pram Town (2009) dealt with the displacement and ennui of living in a new town (Harlow) - and received the best reviews of Hayman's post-Hefner career - Essex Arms takes the narrative to the countryside."

Sunday, October 03, 2010

Episode 315 featured a few Polar Bear tracks. The Love Don't Go Anywhere is from this year's brilliant Peepers album and both Never Giving Up and Enterprize are from the newly released mini-album, Common Ground.

The mini-album is a colaboration between Polar Bear and London-based, Portugal-born rapper Jyager Maktwist. Polar Bear's Sebastian Rochford snatched samples from a vinyl copy of Peepers, and built new tracks from the ground up. The results are really impressive.

Polar Bear's Sebastian Rochford and Jyager

Seb Rochford recently put together the mixtape below for The Quietus and explained to them how the collaboration with Jyager came about. The feature is here.

Following on from Episode 314 here are some great Shellac flyers from their first gig in Cork, Ireland. Support was from two brilliant Irish bands: Cork's The Shanks and Dublin's Female Hercules. The tour was in June of 1998 and took in a few dates around the country including a fantastically surreal date in Connollys of Leap: during the Q&A section a really young girl in the balcony of the venue asked Steve if the band had any "tapes for sale." After the Leap show the band chatted to fans and all three members kindly signed my vinyl copy of Terraform.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

This show featured The Admiral, a track by Shellac, taken from their 1994 Drag City 7'', The Bird is the Most Popular Finger. This is an instrumental version of the track which appears on the band's first album, At Action Park. The b-side is XVI, which is early working of the At Action Park track Pull the Cup. This is a really beautiful 7'' sleeve, the back features a line drawing of the band's loft rehersal space with a number allocated to each item. A black and white photograph of the same loft space then slots in over the line drawing. The 7'' came accompanied by an insert with a number key.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

This episode featured three tracks from Dark Star's 1999 debut album, Twenty Twenty Sound. Dark Star were formed by Christian Hayes, David Francolini and Laurence O'Keefe after their previous band Levitation had disbanded. Terry Bickers had formed Levitation with the lads after leaving the House of Love. Gracedelica and I Am the Sun were both released as singles in 1998 and 1999 respectively and eventually charted upon rerelease in 2000.

Twenty Twenty Sound was produced by Steve Lillywhite and its effects laden guitars, manic drumming and heavily distorted vocals still sound great today, especially on the standout, I Am the Sun. The NME's review of the record got it spot on: "A fine excursion into the murkier reaches of obsession crawling from the wreckage, then. It's not always pretty and seldom comprehensible, but you have to admire a band who can yell lyrics like I am centrifugal as if they were the meaning of life. Although what it all means is anyone's guess. And they said Bickers was the mad one."

Tom Phillips designed Twenty Twenty Sound's beautiful package. The artist and collagist had previously designed album covers for King Crimson (Starless and Bible Black, 1974) and Brian Eno (Another Green World, 1975). His design for Twenty Twenty Sound is similiar to the technique he utilised in his work A HUMUMENT, but using Dark Star's lyrics as his source material.

A HUMUMENT is a treated book based on the Victorian novel 'A Human Document' by W.H. Mallock. (A Human Document. A Hum(an) (Doc)ument. A Humument.)

Inspired by William Burroughs's "cut-up" writing technique, Tom Phillips bought an obscure Victorian novel for three pence - W. H. Mallock's 1892 novel, A Human Document. Phillips drew, painted, and collaged over the pages of Mallock's original text, leaving some of the original text to show through. A Humument was first published in 1970.

Describing his technique Phillips said: "I plundered, mined, and undermined its text to make it yield the ghosts of other possible stories, scenes, poems, erotic incidents, and surrealist catastrophes which seemed to lurk within its wall of words. As I worked on it, I replaced the text I'd stripped away with visual images of all kinds. It began to tell and depict, among other memories, dreams, and reflections, the sad story of Bill Toge, one of love's casualties."

Revised editions appeared in 1986, 1998 and 2004. Each edition revises and replaces various pages. Phillips's stated goal is to eventually replace every page from the 1970 edition. A few of the pages from the 1970 edition can be viewed below and the whole book can be seen here.

Dark Star would record one more album for EMI, the unreleased Zurich and would eventually split up in 2001. Twenty Twenty Sound is definately worth tracking down and the Later performance below is still pretty breathtaking.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

This episode features Overweight But Over You, one of the standout tracks from Sex With An X the brilliant new album by The Vaselines. The album is out on Sub Pop Records and below is the video for the title track. I saw the band live in 2009 in Barcelona at Primavera Sound and they played a fantastic set of old and new tracks. Sex With An X was "produced by Jamie Watson who produced that first album Dum Dum" back in 1990. Eugene and Frances were accompanied by guest musicians Stevie Jackson and Bob Kildea from Belle & Sebastian on guitar and bass, and Michael McGaughrin from the 1990s on drums.

Before that Primavera Sound show the band had played a short tour of the US in support of Sub Pop's compilation Enter The Vaselines. While in Seattle they recorded a brilliant live session for local station KEXP 90.3 FM, two of the tracks are below. The band tour the UK in September and the US in October (including six shows with Dum Dum Girls). Unfortunately there's no news yet of a Dublin show.

The Vaselines - Molly's Lips

(Live Session from Seattle's KEXP 90.3 FM, May 13 2009)

The Vaselines - Son of a Gun

(Live Session from Seattle's KEXP 90.3 FM, May 13 2009)

This episode also featured three tracks from three different soundtracks composed by Clint Mansell. Below is the brilliant Welcome to Lunar Industries from the Duncan Jones directed Moon.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Matador Records will soon celebrate its 21st anniversary with an amazing weekend of gigs in Las Vegas, including a show by Guided by Voices. Back in 1999, when the label reached its tenth anniversary it celebrated with a weekend of gigs in London. The only two acts to play both weekends are Cat Power and Yo La Tengo. Check out the flyer below.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

On this episode we featured Antoni Maiovvi's Class Dagger, one of the standout tracks from his latest album. The Thorns of Love has been described as a "cyber-disco masterpiece" and along with last year's Shadow of the Bloodstained Kiss is absolutely essential listening for anyone looking for "their next fix of synthetic drama after gorging themselves on the work of Fabio Frizzi, John Carpenter or Harold Faltermayer".

This episode also featured Efterklang's remix of Oh No Ono's Icicles. This remix is from the Internet Warrier EP and is out now on the Leaf Label. Carolina Melis, whose previous credits include videos for both Efterklang and Colleen, has directed a beautiful video with Alessandro Monaco for Internet Warrior.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

A weekend in Brussels with friends. A walk through the huge Gare du Midi food market followed by a browse at the flea market at Place du Jeu. All 7''s in mint condition bar a price sticker mark on Egyptian Reggae and I think the Que Sera Sera sticker is going to be a killer to get off, all in all though, a great haul. Some of these tunes will be broadcast on the show in the coming weeks.

The follow up to Roadrunner, the instrumental Egyptian Reggae was a version of Earl Zero's None Shall Escape the Judgment.

Topol - If I Were A Rich Man (1971)

The Box Tops - Neon Rainbow (1967)

The follow up to The Letter and was also written by Wayne Carson Thompson. It never sold as many copies as The Letter but it's still absolutely magical.

"The city lights, the pretty lights, They can warm the coldest nights

All the people going places, Smiling with electric faces.

What they find the glow erases, And what they lose the glow replaces, and life is love,

In a neon rainbow, a neon rainbow."

The Delfonics - Ready Or Not Here I Come (1968)

Daniel White - Belle et Sebastien EP (1965)

A gorgous EP from 1965, five tracks from the television show based on Cécile Aubry's novel of the same name. Belle & Sebastian took their name from the series.

Maurice Jarre - Mourir a Madrid EP (1963)

Maurice Jarre's theme to the Frédéric Rossif's 1963 French documentary about the Spanish Civil War. Mourir a Madrid (To Die In Madrid) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the English version was narrated by John Gielgud. The EP's sleeve features a sketch by Pierre Teulon based on Robert Capa's famous photograph.

Robert Capa - Death of a Loyalist Soldier (1936)

Doris Day - Que Sera Sera EP (1956)

Que Sera Sera and We'll Love Again from Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much and b/w Let It Ring and Love's Little Island. Que Sera Sera gave Ray Evans and Jay Livingston their third Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Songs To Learn And Sing

About the Programme

Songs To Learn And Sing is a weekly radio show featuring the best in new music and forgotten classics. Weekly features include interviews, sessions, retrospectives, reviews and a lot more. The show has been on air since 2004 and over the years guests have included: Malcolm Middleton, Damien Jurado, Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam, Willard Grant Conspiracy’s Robert Fisher, Boom Bip, Stereo Total’s Françoise Cactus, Ken Stringfellow from The Posies, The Wedding Present’s David Gedge, Colin Meloy from The Decemberists, Caribou, Dolorean, Willy Vlautin from Richmond Fontaine, James Yorkston, and The National’s Matt Berninger.

On this blog I post playlists, old interviews from the show and various bits of gig memorabilia.